Clyde Greeno says:# Likewise, you take them to where they can experience modus ponens, and say "This is called 'modus ponens'." And the easiest and most meaningful place for learners to encounter modus ponens is within their own routine conversation.

So this has devolved into a *literal* discussion of "modus ponens" in isolation, because I used the term in context to stand in for the subject "informal logic". I shouldn't be surprised!

Its quite obvious to me that the majority of people are not very skilled at sustaining a line of logical discourse in routine conversation. That's the whole point of training in logic, which was well known thousands of years ago.